Yet another round of layoffs at Microsoft to affect 2,850 people Comments

NechPech, 29 Jul 2016And yet, it is still not even remotely close to compete with iOS or Android.Google will always be no 1 cannot beat it, I wouldn't use a windows phone only because people will laugh at me say what is that thing?.

Spike1, 30 Jul 2016So Mr. Liberal ( Gates) who have a huge humanitarian org cant go ahead and pay people at least... moreThe last few lines you said are so good. This attitude is needed no matter what political views one has.

So Mr. Liberal ( Gates) who have a huge humanitarian org cant go ahead and pay people at least their salaries and to him its easier to let them out! Of course he isnt CEO may be any more! Crap! Beside how can he then defent higher min. wagez!
Shame!
I a Republican highered 2 techs in my pharmacy with not even elementary degree. One was above min wage, the other was double with progection of 5 times! This who we are and how we do it! I can afford camery instead of Mercedes in this case. But both of us can afford cars!

NechPech, 29 Jul 2016And yet, it is still not even remotely close to compete with iOS or Android.No doubt it is a case of "once bitten (twice shy)"..

I have used smart phones since before they were smart.
In fact I had an old ericsson (before they were sony ericsson) that I put an infra red 'modem' on the base of that would beam data to/fro a Psion 5MX that I still hold fond memories for, before Palm Tungstens etc...

I have owned many Windows phones and watched more often than not their de-evolution.
One of their biggest setbacks was dropping backwards compatability when they moved on from win 6.
Sure it may have been inevitable, but the whole reason most people persevere with windows platforms is 'software backwards compatability', (take that away and the world would be linux overnight- I agree bold and stupidly flamey comment, not factoring hardware drivers and gaming useage(the only reason I have win 10- direct x)).

Even Symbian had amstrad emulators that gave the platform thousands of games , even Doom.

Platforms survive by their software. Software makes our computers 'capable'.
Ever opened the box on a brand new computer?,.. twenty minutes later we are staring at the screen going 'what now?' -admittedly this generation will never have this issue; the moment they connect to the internet ( a'wps',button push away), entertainment abounds..

When microsoft decided to have their 'war' with google around winphone 7 days,.. not easily being able to use google services was a crippling many users just didn't stand for.
I had friends being given flagship Nokias; beautiful phones.. but being unable to maintain aspects of their business as easily as Android offered, was a showstopper/dealbreaker.

I simply gave my Nokia to my child. (Stuff like their platform crazyness for flac etc was insane, and ontop of only getting my emails convieniently via the webbrowser rather than the outlook/winmail was stupid)
Their smartphones just were not.

They wanted to force us to use their products (software and infrastructure), which might have made sense at a boardroom presentation level for company decision makers,.. but for real world users hobbled on their platform, it was unfun, unproductive and unwelcome.

In an attempt to make a stack of money, they blew it.
We saw Nokia bought out by them.(believing that would garner platform growth)
Their determination to make the most money and their allegiance to simply shareholders has been their death.

Microsoft sold only 1.22 million phones during the second quarter of 2016, down from 8.4 million the same quarter of 2015. The previous quarter, Microsoft shipped 2.3 million phones.
Windows Phone looked promising when it appeared, but it's pretty much over now, especially without Nokia.

No doubt support staff for windows rollouts are due to be let go..
And realising their lofty ideals for windows 10 install base was too far fetched (based on magically pulling more onto windows mobile), they probably do need a little bit of 'restructuring'.

Problem is when everything is statistics and board room talks it is pretty easy to suggest growth for their mobile division.. it is logically the only way it can go...
Less than 2%, if what I generally read around the place is to be believed, is likely to happen just exising on the market with handsets that end up not selling, then getting massive price markdowns.

I picked up a Nokia 920 cause it was in flagship territory at 1/5th its proper price (New with full warranty), and I have seen so many great hardware handsets, not always entry level, sell for less than the cost of a video game.

Everyone loves a bargain, and not everyone understands there are vastly different operating systems on 'smartphones'.

Winphone isn't such a bad OS.
Some stuff seems insane; like how come old android handsets could hook up to a windows pc and instantly be used as a modem, where as the windows phone, needed drivers..! (Which without a modem the machine cannot get- a real catch 22)
Anyhow vanilla, not needing apps, it is zippy and battery efficient.
I guess having such a small market share makes it less prone to viruses?

They made so many poor decisions in an attempt to be the big dogs that they hurt themselves.

People who work for 'Such a Huge IT'company might not understand how it could all go so wrong.

I'd hate to be Johnny employee having to explain to my relatives I lost my job there; they'd most likely assume it was me and not the company that lost me my job..

Anonymous, 29 Jul 2016Strange, in Bangalore India Microsoft has now thousands of software coding openings.that's probably why they are cutting jobs (which pay much more) to employ there much less for the same job.
it happens to many companies who want to save a bit of cash but still get the work done.